


The Tigers Have Spoken

by thegiantkiller (theleaveswant)



Category: Firefly
Genre: Animals, Gen, One of My Favorites, Philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-10
Updated: 2006-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 03:32:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleaveswant/pseuds/thegiantkiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Serenity crew argue about a tiger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Ficalbum (claimed _The Tigers Have Spoken_ by Neko Case). This one's for the title track.

Never one to argue with a deal gone smooth, Mal left the buyer’s office whistling along with the tune of coin clinking in his picket. He blinked in the shock of sunlight and looked around to find his crew all standing round a busted-up wooden cart, staring at a field. Frowning, Mal crossed the street to their position and fell in at Zoe’s shoulder.

“Thought I asked you to round ‘em up and have Serenity ready to fly. What’s the hold up?”

Simon opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by Jayne’s muttered “It ain’t right.”

“What ain’t?”

Simon overrode him, smiling apologetically at Mal. “River won’t leave.” The Albatross herself was keeping perch on the topmost part of the wagon and did not look in Mal’s direction.

“Why ever not?” he asked, and Kaylee pointed to a wheeled cage anchored under a tree near the middle of the field. Inside the cage a tiger paced restlessly. “Oh,” said Mal. “Well, that’s a real pretty puss, but I doubt she’d make much of a pet and I got rules against lettin’ wild animals ‘board my ship, so—“

“What about Jayne?” Wash chuckled, then grunted when the mercenary punched him in the arm.

“Jayne’s ship’s mascot, he don’t count.”

“He mauled a child,” Kaylee said, resting on her folded arms on the wagon’s rail.

Mal rounded on Jayne. “You did _what_ now?”

“Not me, _him_. The tiger.”

“Definitely got rules ‘gainst having man-eaters on board.”

“It did not eat the boy, Captain,” Shepherd Book spoke up, “only bit him. They’re going to put it down.”

“Put it down?”

Wash mimed shooting himself in the head. “That’s how come he’s out here instead of with the other critters in the town’s little menagerie.”

“Why they didn’t just do it when it happened is what I don’t understand.” Zoe frowned. “Why go to the trouble of packing him up to move him?”

The pilot shrugged. “Less mess? Probably didn’t want to traumatize the patrons.”

“And how come we’re all out here starin’ at it?” Mal asked.

He shrugged again. “River started it.”

Mal shaded his eyes to peer up at her. “Hey there, little guài rén. Been up there long?”

“Three hours, forty-seven minutes.”

“Thinking of getting back on the ship any time soon?”

River shifted her frail shoulders. “It’s not up to me.”

“Who’s it up to, then?” She didn’t respond.

“Well, shiny.” Mal squinted at the tiger, which yawned and lay down in the shadiest part of the cage. “How’d the kid come to get bitten, anyway, I wonder?”

“Stuck his hand between the bars of the enclosure, I’d imagine.” Book’s face was inscrutable as ever.

“I still say it ain’t right.”

Kaylee wearily took the bait and asked, “What ain’t right?”

“Well, it ain’t fair, is it? Tiger didn’t kill the boy, why they got to go and kill the tiger?”

The mechanic looked aghast. “Jayne, he tried to kill a child!”

“You don’t know that.”

“Hell I don’t, it’s a miracle he survived!”

“Actually,” Simon said grudgingly, “it’s really not. He was only bitten on the arm, the damage seems to have been largely superficial.”

“See?” Jayne waved a hand at the cage. “He was probably just tellin’ the kid ta back off . . . or testin’ if he was good to eat. In any case, it’s the kid’s own fault he got bit.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Kid broke the rules.”

She snorted. “Jayne Cobb talking about rules.”

“What’s the shock about that? I may not always play by the rules—“

“That’s an understatement.”

“—but I keep track o’ what they are in a given situation, and I know if I find trouble by breaking ‘em I brought it on myself, leastways a little bit. Kid broke the rules and got bit, it’s his own fault.”

“And the tiger didn’t do anything wrong?”

“Well, no.”

“There ain’t no rules against biting folks?”

“For people, maybe. But tigers don’t got rules, or if they do it’s tiger rules and nothing like the kind we ken. And even if tigers did gotta listen’a human rules, it seems t’me highly unlikely that anyone ever bothered to explain them to him. The kid, though, he has it all explained: stay close to yer mom, don’t duck under that chain, don’t go sticking nothin’ between those bars—and he did it anyway.”

“So what ought they do with the tiger?”

Jayne shrugged. “I dunno. Let the kid maul ‘im back? Or, y’know, poke him with a stick or something.”

“You know,” Simon looked grieved, “Jayne does have a point. Not the stick thing, but the rules. I’m skeptical of ascribing to the tiger any malicious intent. It’s only an animal, after all. It just did what tigers do, with no thought of right or wrong.”

Kaylee looked at Simon like he’d betrayed her by siding with Jayne. “That also means he can’t promise not to do it again. He’s dangerous!”

“No more so than any other animal.”

“Simon!”

Mal raised a hand. “You know, much as I hate to interrupt such a heady moral debate, we only booked that docking port until 1600 and it’s getting pretty close to—“

Kaylee interrupted him by turning imploringly to Shepherd Book. “Preacher, you gotta have somethin’ to say about this!”

Book looked thoughtful. “Well . . . according to the book of Genesis, God created only man in his own likeness—that is, He made him unique in his ability to formulate decisions according to principles such as morality. Thus, Simon’s argument that the tiger’s actions were not ‘bad’ would be correct, because the tiger is unable to perceive them as such. It was likely only defending its already constrained territory. But God also gave man dominion over all other living things—a phrase which I personally interpret to mean an arrangement of responsible custodianship, though others have read it as a license for exploitation. My opinion is that while the town’s reaction to the situation is regrettable, it is not a violation of that arrangement. It is only natural for the child’s family and community to hold the life and well-being of their own number at a higher value than that of another creature.”

Zoë addressed the cleric without turning to face him. “So the tiger’s being punished for being different, is that it?”

“I’m admitting empathy with the human urge to favour the familiar and similar over a potentially dangerous other.”

“Fascinating point, eloquently presented. If we could all just—“ Mal tried again and was again cut off.

“Shepherd, that ‘other’ is already restricted to a cage while the ‘familiar’ are allowed to roam free. If that ain’t punishment I don’t know what is.”

“I’m not saying that I condone it, only that I understand the motivation.”

“But there are already so many more humans in the ‘verse than tigers . . .” Wash said, frowning thoughtfully, “you’d think a tiger’s life would be more valuable because they’re so rare.”

“Ethics don’t work the same as economics, honey.”

“No, of course I know that. I’m just wondering if this is a legitimate . . . waste of tiger.”

“Well I think it is!” Kaylee put her fists on her hips, eyes flashing a challenge at anyone who would meet them. “I ain’t sayin’ I ain’t in favour of tigers, I am. I wish there were a whole lot more o’them. I just think that, on an individual basis, if they’re gonna be makin’ a habit of bitin’ on people, something’s gotta be done to stop them.”

“Can a single occurrence really be interpreted as evidence of a habit, though?” Simon posed. “If the tiger had never had the opportunity to bite someone, we wouldn’t be able to reach any conclusions about whether or not it might.”

“But he did have the opportunity, and he did bite! Conclusion reached!”

“I’m not denying that, I’m just saying a single event is insufficient basis for making claims about tendency.”

“But if it’s not a habit, if he was just having a bad day, then what do they do with him? If he didn’t do it on purpose, like you and Book agree, and if he’s not planning to do it again, then why are they killing him? It doesn’t seem fair.”

Jayne gestured positively at Wash. “That’s what I been sayin’!”

Mal tried to physically interpose himself between the combatants. “Don’t suppose there’s any chance of continuing this discussion vessel-side?”

Simon shrugged. “I honestly have no suggestions, and even if I did I’m as much a stranger here as you and it’s not my place to interfere.”

“Well, like Zoe said. He’s already locked up, ain’t that punishment enough? Know it’d feel like torture to me.”

“But then what about the other animals? If they never did anything wrong, they don’t deserve to be treated like prisoners. No, Kaylee,” Wash waved an placatory hand at the indignant mechanic, “I agree with you that something has to be done if he’s risk to human safety, I just think summary execution without trial seems a little extreme. And I think what Jayne just said makes sense, except that he was locked up all along so it wouldn’t actually change anything. And it seems wrong to me that it’s protective custody for one critter but the normal condition for the others.”

Zoe quirked an eyebrow. “Maybe that’s the problem right there, that he’s been locked up all along. I’ve known a lot of hands both before and after they served a stint inside, every one came out a whole lot less agreeable than they went in. Incarceration never did any soul good.”

“That’s a good point, baby. I know if it were me I’d go loopy as a doodlebug in a fruitcake factory. Can tigers plead insanity?”

“Okay, so locking people up doesn’t work. Then what does?”

“That, Doc, is a mighty fine question.”

“. . . we could always feed ‘em to the tigers.”

“Jayne!”

“What? I’m just saying, it’s a tidy solution. Takes care of yer execution method and yer body disposal in one go, eliminates any tendency towards recidivism.”

Book smiled wryly. “Capital punishment certainly does look appealing on paper. Perhaps that’s one reason it’s been employed by so many different human civilizations over the centuries. Of course, the problems they sought to solve are all still with us, so it would appear to have been less than perfectly effective.”

“An’ what about murdering tigers, huh? Who are we supposed to feed them to?”

“Gorramit, Kaylee, he didn’t murder nobody!”

“But if he did?”

“If he did he’d have a whole new career. Think about it, it’s perfect! Gets him away from the wee kiddies so he’s no threat to them, and he’ll never fear hunger when he’s got unlimited supply of the wicked and the stupid-enough-to-get-caught to snack on.”

Mal took Kaylee’s seething glare as an opportunity to jump in once more. “Now that is one line of reasoning I can agree with. I can think of more’n a few folks the ‘verse’d be a nicer place if they’d long since wound up in the belly of a slaverin’ beast.”

“Like me,” River’s quiet murmur drew all eyes upwards. “Your lives would all be much simpler if I’d become tiger food.”

“Hey now, bǎobèi, you know that weren’t nowhere near my meaning.”

“I know. But that doesn’t make it less true.” She swung her legs around to kick them against the side of the wagon. “That isn’t really a tiger, you know. Not technically.”

“It ain’t?”

“Sure looks like one to me.”

“He was a tiger, once. But he forgot. Like the cows in the hold, only he forgot a long time ago, and now he can never remember. They fed him from a bottle, and he was happy, only he lost who he was and without that he’s just a tiger-shaped hole.”

“But . . . if he ain’t a tiger, then what does that mean for . . .?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s a moot point, really, since he is equipped with the mental and physical apparatus of a tiger and consequently operates within tiger parameters. He’s not-tiger by such a narrow margin that it really is much simpler to treat him as a tiger for the sake of expediency. He just isn’t one, in a very subtle but important way. I thought it might interest you to know.”

“That why you been here all afternoon? Why you climbed up there to watch him?” Mal shaded his eyes against the glare so he could better make out her face.

Her lips twisted in a ghostly flicker of a smile. “I empathize. You want to leave now.”

“Hey, no rush. We can stay as long as you need.”

She pushed off from the wagon and dropped lightly to the ground. “I’m ready. I know Serenity’s waiting.”

“Well then.” Mal extended his hand and River laid her own slim fingers across his calloused palm. Together they strolled up the thoroughfare to the lot where they’d left Serenity, letting the others follow along at their own pace away from the sighing tiger.

“That was fun!” Jayne announced.

“You know, it kinda was,” Wash grinned.

“Especially for me, since I won.”

“What? You didn’t win,” Kaylee protested. “Jayne did not win!”

“Then who did?”

“Wash, honey, don’t start.”

“River, you were watching. Who won?”

“Somebody not Jayne,” Kaylee insisted.

“You all did.”

“Oh, that’s sweet. But seriously, who?”

“You each argued your points with creativity and passion, and sometimes that’s all we can do.”

“Okay . . . but who argued best?”

“Guys, come on. This has been such a good day. Can we not ruin it now by starting another fight?”

“Yes, Mal.”

“All right.” He stepped into the shadow thrown by Serenity’s looming frame. “Let’s get ready to shake some dust.”


	2. Coda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secret bonus ficlet to go with secret bonus dialogue track discussing solutions to world’s overabundance of children.

Later, long after the chatter of human speech had faded and the sun had begun its slow slide out of view, the creature that was almost-but-not-quite a tiger paced again in orbit of his greater-than-usual confinement. He rubbed his head against the bars, seeking relief for the itch he could never escape, the itch beneath and between his bones. The pressure of his weight on the cage’s door sent that door swinging open, the cut chain rattling on the iron bars as it slipped free of its loose knot. The creature paused in this new opening, scenting the air. The cool of evening was just beginning to settle and the breeze was rich with alfalfa and rapeseed. The creature extended a wondering paw to the damp earth, then shot like the shadow of lightning for the far end of the field and disappeared between the trees. Somewhere nearby, a sheep bleated.


End file.
